The Mountain View, Calif.-based research firm notes that Carrier Ethernet continues to gain ground with business users due to its scalability, reliability and cost-efficient bandwidth. When evaluating a service provider, it's important to see beyond benchmarks around billable retail ports delivered, and have a complete, thorough picture. This includes the vendors' overall market stance, which is best considered by looking at how the providers stack up head-to-head based on revenue. When selecting the best Carrier Ethernet provider, Frost & Sullivan says market revenue correlates to that vendor's ability to provide quality service and adequate support, as well as their network reach and longevity in the marketplace.

"We find AT&T and Verizon continue to lead in the overall Ethernet services market due to their sheer size and geographic reach, which is reflected in their robust offerings in terms of service portfolio, delivery models and performance guarantees," said Roopa Honnachari, Frost & Sullivan's Industry Director - Business Communication Services & Cloud Computing. "Overall, Ethernet emerges as the preferred enterprise choice, with increasing penetration of bandwidth intensive applications such as video, collaboration and VoIP in the enterprise WAN network driving demand for high capacity bandwidth."

Revenue for business Carrier Ethernet services topped $4 billion in 2013, she said, and is expected to reach $10 billion by 2018. The research finds that while both dedicated and switched Ethernet services are seeing growth, the latter is witnessing much higher year-over-year growth rates as compared to dedicated Ethernet.

The report further says that demand for point-to-point or E-Line Ethernet services continues to grow as businesses migrate from traditional private lines (T1/T3/SONET) to Ethernet. Similarly, E-LAN services continue to see growth in key verticals, such as health care, government and education, which often need multipoint-to-multipoint connectivity. Switched Ethernet, with its ability to support multiple Ethernet Virtual Circuits (EVCs) that enable service multiplexing onto a single port, has seen significant adoption in the metro markets.

Looking for more Carrier Ethernet stats?Click here for Vertical Systems Group's rankings that were released earlier this year.